


how to drift ashore

by notorious



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst?, College flashbacks, F/F, and they were ROOMMATES, dysfunctional to functional relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:15:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28724940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notorious/pseuds/notorious
Summary: nicole's felt something for wynonna since college; wynonna doesn't like thinking about anything she's feltsincecollege.
Relationships: Wynonna Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	how to drift ashore

**Author's Note:**

> howdy. this has been sitting in my drafts for ages and i gotta do something with it. pov starts with wynonna and switches pretty quickly (and stays) with nicole bc the beginning can't be taken out without fucking up the narrative and idk how to convert any of it to nicole's pov without exhausting my mental energy. so uhhh my apologies. sparsely edited. title from never let me go by ghostly kisses.

Wynonna doesn’t remember when she stopped sleeping on the couch and started curling up on the far side of Nicole’s bed. She remembers it was for comfort, for her back, because the couch was killing her and she was sick and tired of waking up with knots in her back as tough as fists. She remembers ragged dreams and waking up at two am to scramble for blankets lost to the floor, remembers the lazy glare of the moon through the window that Nicole refused to curtain because it was a window to the city and looking through it reminded her that she was alive.

Nicole’s way or the highway, that’s how the apartment used to run.

Somewhere along the way Nicole started caring about Wynonna again and it became Nicole’s way with an itty bitty side of whatever Wynonna wanted. “Sky’s the limit,” Nicole always said, but Wynonna never took it higher than their third story walk-up.

They were never supposed to live together. Hadn’t wanted to, either, but when Doc fell through (and fell for Rosita again) Wynonna was out of a boyfriend  _ and _ a home and no matter how much Nicole insisted she couldn’t stand her she’d offered up her couch without hesitation.

That was two years ago.

“... _ my _ pillow,” Wynonna hears.

Mostly she feels the offending object yanked from beneath her head before she can offer to move. Which she would have done, mind you, if Nicole were not  _ Nicole _ . Grumpy and territorial and everything Wynonna needs..

She nuzzles into her pillow-less section of bed and grins.

“Smells like your shampoo,” she mumbles.

“Not an excuse.”

But then she feels a hand beneath her head, lifting, and the pillow’s there again, only now it’s being shared. Now she’s got Nicole at her back and she’s waiting for the arm that always tucks around her middle and pulls her in. It comes a moment later, when she’s beginning to drift off again, but before she does she lays her hand over Nicole’s and laces their fingers together like always.

Wynonna doesn’t know when this started, either. The affection. The falling asleep in Nicole’s arms, the waking up with Nicole curled around her like she needs protecting when she used to be so averse to casual affection. She doesn’t need protecting, and she’d like to make that very clear, but she’s capable of surrendering enough of her pride to play little spoon to Nicole’s big every once in a while.

It’s the nights she falls asleep with her head on Nicole’s chest, chasing a heartbeat, calming instantly when she finds the steady thrum that scares the shit out of her. Vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake is not something Wynonna Earp is familiar with. Not to mention the history they have. The cop’s better with the mushy shit than Wynonna is, so they don’t talk about it, even though she suspects there’s a part of Nicole that would love nothing more than to talk out what exactly is going on between them.

Which is—what?

“Gotta go to work, Wy.”

“Mmf.” Wynonna turns over when Nicole extracts herself, curls up, taking the pillow for herself and pulling the blankets up to her chin. “Bring back doughnuts.”

Wynonna’s drunk when Nicole gets home. She’d woken up at noon and started thinking too hard and figured the best way to drown it out was with a bottle of Pendleton and thirty dollars worth of fried rice and dumplings from the shop at the end of the block. As far as Wynonna Earp coping mechanisms go, this is tame.

“It’s six-thirty, Wynonna,” Nicole says, dropping a box of doughnuts on the table, sighing. “Everything okay?”

“Peachy.”

First she wondered why she’s with Nicole, and then she remembered she  _ isn’t  _ with Nicole. She doesn’t know what they are. Friends? Sure. With benefits? On occasion. Roommates? Definitely that. She barely knew what they were in college, now that it was on her mind.

Then she thought about how they fought. How it was always her doing something stupid and Nicole, fully justified, calling her out on it with much less rage than expected. She didn’t understand why Nicole stuck around. She never has.

More often than not Wynonna knows she’s in the wrong, but her impulse control is faulty at best and her need to ruin any good in her life is high as the sky.

Like the time she blacked out on the couch and left the kitchen window propped open and the cat got out. When Nicole came home and Calamity Jane was AWOL Wynonna felt ashamed and raggedy and unworthy of all Nicole had done for her.

“This shit  _ has _ to stop,” Nicole said after a dreadful moment of silence. Wynonna could see the fire in her eyes, could feel the flames singing her skin and threatening to scorch her raw. “I let you stay here — I feed you, I fund your whiskey habit—and  _ this _ is how you repay me? I’ve had that cat since  _ high school _ . You’d better pray to whatever god you believe in that she’s all right.”

“I’m…” Sorry? Wynonna couldn’t look at her. “I’ll find the cat.”

“You do that,” Nicole said, cold. “Get a job while you’re at it, Wynonna. Freeloading stops now.”

It took her nine hours to find the cat.

It took her three days to find a job.

When they fought, Wynonna thought, Nicole was always in the right. And she didn't like to be in the wrong any more than she liked the dejected sulking that always followed a standoff. But once a matter was settled Nicole never held it over her head, which was new for Wynonna. She was used to being tortured with the past and left to figure it out on her own.

Now she shakes her head, crinkling her nose, and watches with a small smile as Nicole unbuckles her utility belt and slides it free. Wynonna loves that sound, the hiss of leather against khaki.

“Got stuck in my head,” she says, puffing out her cheeks.

“Nothing good happens when you think too hard,” Nicole teases. She’s not wrong.

Wynonna slumps in her chair as a dopey grin finds her lips.

And, “What do you need?” she hears from Nicole. Nicole, who’s fresh off a twelve hour shift and somehow still selfless enough to want to take care of her.

“Can I hold the gun?”

“No.”

“Taser?”

“ _ Wynonna _ .”

“Buzzkill. Come here.”

She settles for a kiss. Slow and a little sloppy because Nicole tastes like french vanilla coffee and her tongue is soft and her hands are heavy on Wynonna’s thighs and it’s hard to be a good kisser when she’s boozy from booze and woozy from Nicole up against her.

Next day Nicole drops by the bar at lunchtime to bring Wynonna a sandwich because she knows better than anyone how often her roommate forgets to feed herself on the job. And some part of her still thinks Wynonna getting a job at a bar is dicey, a bit dangerous, but she’s never missed a shift and the regulars have a soft spot for her.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Wynonna says.

“Brought lunch,” Nicole says.

And she wants to lean over the bar, wants to take Wynonna’s face in her hands and stroke her cheeks with her thumbs and tell her she’s never looked prettier. Her hair’s doing that windswept thing it likes to do, falling loose and framing her face like heavenly light does an angel. Nicole would tell Wynonna she’s never been prettier every single day if Wynonna wasn’t the way she is: stubborn and afraid of commitment and public displays of affection that she herself does not initiate. She looks tired, too, like she’d rather be curled up in one of Nicole’s police academy shirts in their bed at home.

Nicole stops, blinks.

She’s never thought of it as  _ their _ bed before. It’s been  _ their _ home for months as opposed to her home that Wynonna just happens to live in, but this is new. And it scares the shit out of her because she hasn’t thought about college in a damn while and she really doesn’t want to; she’s over what happened back then, as painful as it was, but what she felt for Wynonna never did manage to go away.

“Haught? You in there?”

“Sorry.” Nicole shakes her head, sets the sandwich bag on the bar. “Uh. They’re sending me to Toronto for a week, some training conference. You gonna be okay?”

“When do you leave?”

“Two days.”

Wynonna nods, managing a half smile. “I won’t burn the house down, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

When Nicole flies out two days later she remembers for the first time in a while what it’s like to be alone. She’s lived with Wynonna for two years now, and she’s used to having someone around no matter if that someone is the biggest pain in the ass this side of the border. First night on her lonesome Nicole curls up in her hotel room with a drink and thinks about what she doesn’t want to think about: college. About how she and Wynonna met.

… 

It was an accident, them meeting.

Nicole bumped right into a girl in the library and watched her stack of books spill to the ground while she growled and cursed.

Then the girl glared at her, and Nicole’s world broke open.

“Oh God, I’m sorry,” Nicole repeated like a mantra, but was trying not to smile. The girl met her on the floor, grumbling, and snatched the last book from Nicole’s hands like just her touch had sullied it. Nicole was moderately-to-severely embarrassed and already in love.

The girl’s eyes didn’t shine like stars and her scowl rivaled the devil himself, but Nicole didn’t care. Those eyes were dewdrops and that frown was the ground. Her hair was wavy, loose, what you’d call windswept if there were a breeze.

At that moment all Nicole knew was that she was going to fall for the girl with the hair like a mare with a Hollywood stylist. No question about it.

A week later they saw each other at a frat party, a function Nicole would’ve done without if she hadn’t been cooped up in her dorm all week with textbooks and caffeine as her only company. She needed to get out of that building, and she needed a damn drink.

She was in line for Jungle Juice when a head popped up a few spots ahead and dewy eyes narrowed and zeroed in on her.

“You gonna watch where you’re going this time?” the girl from the library asked.

Nicole grinned, tossed back, “I’ll think about it.”

Three weeks after that it was October and this time the library girl who ran into Nicole. Literally. Spilled half a beer and soaked Nicole’s shirt down the back.

“Ohhh—hell on wheels,” she drawled, grinning like the Joker as she gulped down the rest of the drink. “We’ve  _ really _ gotta stop meeting like this.”

“Jackass,” Nicole said, scowling.

“That’s m’name.” With the lip of a plastic cup clutched between her teeth she reached for Nicole, pushing her flannel over her shoulders and pulling it off like they weren’t strangers, like they’d done this a hundred times before, mumbling, “Don’t wear it out. And don’t wear this anymore, either.”

That was when Nicole realized—somewhere between trying not to melt at the devilish glee in the girl’s eyes and wishing she’d layered over a tee instead of a tank—that she didn’t actually know this girl’s name.

“ _ Wynonna _ .”

Fitting, Nicole thought, but couldn’t say why.

It came from the mouth of a girl with dark brown hair loose over her shoulders with a bit of it tied up high at the top of her head. A tender annoyance filled her eyes, a look Nicole figured she’d find in many of Wynonna’s acquaintances. It made Nicole smile.

But when Wynonna greeted the girl with a little kiss and, “Rosita, sweet-cheeks,” Nicole felt her heart sink.

“Doc’s out cold in the tub,” Rosita said, and looked at Nicole. “Can’t lift him alone. Your new friend can help.”

Doc turned out to be a one-seventy slab of absolute piss-drunk man with perhaps the most impressive mustache Nicole had ever seen. She and Rosita hauled him out while Wynonna perched on the sink counter with a fresh drink and watched with amusement.

They dumped him on the porch swing, a rickety old thing in desperate need of replacement, but it held Doc just the same.

“Nicole, by the way,” she offered while Wynonna dropped herself onto the swing and settled Doc’s head in her lap. Nicole watched her fingers drift through the snoring man’s long hair and hated how she wished that were her.

“Thanks, Nicky.”

“That’s not…” But Wynonna wasn’t listening.

Four days later they came head-to-head in the supermarket, grocery carts clanging off each other like tinny bumper cars.

Nicole looked up to find Wynonna and Doc, arm in arm, giggling like a pair of schoolkids. Wynonna brightened when she noticed her.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Nicole said. “Hi Doc.”

Doc looked over his shoulder, looked back at Nicole, fixed her with a puzzled look. He didn’t remember her. She couldn’t blame him.

“Night you almost died at Dolls’ thing,” Wynonna said. “She helped.”

“In that case.” Doc nodded, smiled a crooked smile. “Consider me in your debt, Miss—?”

“Haught.” Wynonna snorted. Nicole rolled her eyes. “Nicole.”

“Nicole,” Doc repeated.

She nodded and turned her cart to go. A hand caught her by the arm.

“The mister and missus are leaving me on my lonesome this weekend,” Wynonna said. “I’m having a few people over. Want to come?”

She really, really did.

“Does the name Wynonna Earp mean anything to you?” Nicole asked her roommates that night over dinner.

Jeremy and Robin shared a look.

“I heard she’s a bit of a basket case,” Robin said.

“I heard she’s got a boyfriend  _ and _ a girlfriend,” Jeremy said.

Nicole really wished she’d quit thinking of Wynonna as the deadly gorgeous girl with the glorious hair she kept bumping into everywhere she went. She didn’t want to mess with someone’s relationship (relationships?), no matter how much she liked running into her. There are some things you just don’t interfere with.

“She invited me to a party,” Nicole said.

“ _ Oooooooh _ .”

“You gonna go?”

“Yeah,” Nicole decided aloud. “I think I just might.”

Wynonna’s party was less a party as it was a handful of kids from campus and a booze stash big enough to tank continental North America in the nicest apartment Nicole’d ever been in.

There was Mercedes, perhaps the prettiest redhead Nicole ever did see.

Kate, a girl with deep dangerous eyes and a coy smile.

And Eliza, who looked Nicole up and down, said nothing, and slunk off to join Kate and her bottle of gin.

Wynonna was nowhere to be found, so Nicole let Mercedes pour her a drink and sit her down on a black leather couch facing the windows.

“So how do you know Wynonna?”

“I don’t,” Nicole said, “not really. I helped, uh, she and Rosita wrangle Doc once when he blacked out. I’m not actually sure why she invited me tonight.”

Under Mercedes’s gaze Nicole grew warmer by the minute. Her eyes seemed to knock at the door of her soul which, at the very least, tingled.

“I might have an idea,” Mercedes began.

Nicole didn’t get to hear what she was thinking because a head lowered between them, arms resting on the back of the couch.

“Are we talking about me?”

“Not everything’s about you, Earp,” Mercedes said, but smiled.

Between fixating on the half-empty glass in her hands and the chipping blue paint on her nails, Nicole snuck a look at Wynonna, who stared right back at her. It unnerved her as much as it thrilled her.

“Beat it, Mercedes.”

“Be nice to this one,” Mercedes told Wynonna, nodding toward Nicole. “She’s sweet.” Then she stepped out to join Kate and Eliza on the balcony.

Twenty minutes and two drinks later Wynonna led her into a dimly lit bedroom.

Black brick walls met hardwood at the floor, a window framed the space above the headboard of a wire-framed bed with black sheets. Frames lined the walls. Family, if Nicole had to guess. Leftward a girl, undoubtedly another Earp if the eyes and hair and the smile were anything to go by, looked out dreamily from a white picture frame, eyes refusing to meet the camera. Straight ahead another frame outlined three young girls (one scowling, the other expressionless, the youngest genuinely smiling) and their father, his head just visible over their shoulders from where he crouched behind them. Rightward a woman—not an Earp, Nicole thought, but blood—stared longingly up at the sky while the wind swept the hair away from her face.

“Wow,” Nicole said. It was the only word she could find.

“My dad’s work,” Wynonna said. “He thought he’d make it big as a photographer.”

“Is he as melancholy as these pictures make him look?”

“Enough so to get himself killed.”

“Oh.” Nicole blinked, regret flooded her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Wynonna shrugged, shook her head. “You didn’t know. Now you do.”

Nicole looked around again, anything to not have to look at the sadness she was sure to find in Wynonna’s eyes, and settled on the photo of the three girls. Wynonna was easy to pick out of the bunch; that scowl hadn’t aged a day.

When she opened her mouth to apologize again, Wynonna stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

“If you’re going to say sorry again, don’t,” she said. “I didn’t bring you here for your sympathy.”

“Why did you invite me tonight?” Nicole asked because it was still heavy on her mind and in that moment of transparency between them she suspected to get a better answer than ever else.

Wynonna took a moment. Didn’t let go of Nicole, just inched backward and pulled Nicole with her until she bumped up against the foot of the bed and lifted herself onto it. And then she looked at their hands, stared a moment, and drew her thumb slowly across Nicole’s knuckles. And Nicole couldn’t breathe, not really, because Wynonna was far more intoxicating than any drink could ever hope to be and Nicole was well into the deep end.

“You aren’t very good at hiding your feelings,” Wynonna said, not unkindly. “It’s  _ stupid _ obvious on your face, every time we run into each other.”

Nicole couldn’t remember ever sounding so soft when she asked, “What’s obvious?”

“How bad you want me.”

“Oh.” When she tried to pull her hand free Wynonna didn’t let her. “I’m not—that’s not—”

“Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong, Nicole.”

She couldn’t do that.

All she could do was try not to look dejected and downcast as she said, “You have a girlfriend.”  _ And  _ a boyfriend, if Nicole wasn’t mistaken, but boys hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things.

“Who do you think told me to go for you?”

Nicole didn’t know what to say to that.

Didn’t know what to do, either, when Wynonna kept pulling her in, so she let her, until her hips nestled between Wynonna’s knees and they were closer than they’d ever been before. It lit a fire within Nicole that wanted nothing more than to stoke.

“Me and Rosita aren’t exclusive, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Wynonna said, and Nicole could feel her breath on her lips. 

“What about you and Doc?”

“Free love, baby.”

“And what would we be?”

“A force to be reckoned with.”

Damn good answer, Nicole thought.

Up close Wynonna was even more beautiful than she’d thought. Warmth blossomed in her face. Pink tinted soft lips. Perfectly loose waves framed firm slopes of cheeks, jaw, and chin, and Nicole wanted to take her face in her hands and just explore. Up close Wynonna was as terrifying as she was breathtaking; Nicole had never been a breath away from such grace, and she didn’t know what she needed to do to keep it like that but thought she’d cross the seven seas twice for it.

When Wynonna took her hands and laid them on her thighs, covered them with her own, and squeezed, Nicole broke. And she certainly wasn’t about to admit that this would be her first  _ anything _ with another girl, so she let Wynonna lead her. She was surprisingly patient with her. Didn’t rush her. Just skimmed her hands up Nicole’s arms until she found her shoulders, until she could dance her fingertips over the collar of her sweater, until she reached her jaw, and cradled Nicole’s face as delicately as one would fine china. 

Nicole broke all over again, but this time it felt a lot more like melting. She was leaning into Wynonna before she realized it, and Wynonna crossed her ankles behind her back to trap her in, but Nicole knew she wouldn’t run even if she wanted to.

Two weeks later they were bar hopping when Nicole posed a question that had been on her mind a while.

“How’d a girl like you end up with a name like Wynonna?”

And Wynonna just smiled, shaking her head. “My family has a long history of w names. My baby sister’s Waverly, the oldest of us is Willa. My parents didn’t want to break tradition.”

“You don’t talk about them much, your parents.”

“Not much to talk about.”

Shoulders rolled back, squared, and Wynonna puffed the hair out of her face. Nicole knew not to push, but she liked learning about Wynonna.

“You can talk to me about those things, you know,” Nicole told her. “The things you don’t like talking about.”

Wynonna would rather drink.

And she drank a lot, Nicole learned, but somehow never let it ruin her.

“Date night Friday?” Wynonna asked her a few days later, laid out on her belly across Nicole’s bed while the redhead lounged at her desk with a paperback.

“Just you and me?”

By then Nicole should’ve known better than to hope.

“And company,” Wynonna said. “Doc and Rosita found a drive in a couple towns over. You in?”

“So a double date?”

“Come here.” Wynonna hated questions like that. Pulling Nicole down on top of her, threading her fingers through her hair, and coaxing her tongue into her mouth was her preferred method of answering that which she did not wish to answer.

And Nicole let her because Wynonna was wild, she was warm, and she wouldn’t give herself to her in all the ways Nicole wished she would. It made her want Wynonna that much more. Shouldn’t have, but it did.

Wynonna wasn’t big on PDA. Nicole was.

They fought about holding hands en route to class.

They fought about kissing on park benches and lounging on one another on the green in front of the library.

They fought about little things until February came around then they fought some more.

Nicole wanted to take her out for dinner, just them two, and Wynonna snapped.

“No,” Wynonna said.

“No what?”

“No, we’re not going to dinner on Valentine’s Day at a place neither of us can afford where we’ll drink wine until our wallets are empty and our hearts are boozy.”

“That’s not fair.”

Wynonna’s jaw clenched, her shoulders stiffened, but the look on her face was anything but angry. It was lost, Nicole thought, and she wanted to help her find her way.

“Talk to me,” she pleaded, sinking to her knees at the edge of her bed where Wynonna sat in jeans and leather. When she tried to inch back toward the wall Nicole stopped her. “I want to understand.”

“My dad, he—” a shake of the head, a harsh breath; Nicole took Wynonna’s hands and squeezed “—he was a real sack of shit,” she said, laughing, and it was only as her breath hitched and her voice wavered that Nicole realized she was fighting back tears.

Silence.

Nicole didn’t speak.

Wynonna just breathed.

Some more silence.

Nicole stroked Wynonna’s knuckles.

Wynonna shook her head, said, “My parents had no business being married. They destroyed each other. I don’t know what  _ this _ is supposed to look like.”

“Love?”

“We’re not in love,” Wynonna said and smiled, but sadly. “Meant a healthy relationship, dummy.”

Nicole laughed but only because it hurt and laughing was easier than crumbling.

“Then let’s figure that out. You and me.”

Wynonna smiled, a real one this time, shaking her head. “You’re still not getting that Valentine’s Day dinner.”

Two weeks later Wynonna kissed her up against a tree in-between classes. It was as much a surprise as it was lovely.

“I want to figure it out,” she said. “The healthy relationship thing.”

Nicole’s heart soared. “Wynonna, that’s—”

“With Doc.”

And just like that, barely a second later, her heart shattered. “That was a goodbye kiss,” she realized aloud.

“I’m—” sorry? no “—yeah,” Wynonna said. “I’ll see ya round, Haught.”

That was a lie.

They graduated in May.

Nicole didn’t see Wynonna for another year and a half and when she did she let her right back in, gave her a couch to sleep on, fed her, and fell in love with her all over again.

… 

Wynonna’s asleep when Nicole gets back from Toronto. Stretched out across Nicole’s side of the bed, wrapped up in one of Nicole’s Raptors hoodies, snoring softly like a snoozing puppy.

The house is clean, Nicole notices, cleaner than when she left for the airport, which surprises her. Wynonna’s never been one for chores, more one for tossing beer cans in the general direction of the recycling bin and calling it a day. The fridge is stocked, sink and dishwasher empty, and the little rug in the living room looks vacuumed. 

Nicole doesn’t know why it means so much to her, why there are tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Either, she thinks, because Wynonna put effort into something productive or because Wynonna did something that makes things a little easier for Nicole. Both, probably. And of course she went and did it when there was no one around to see. Nicole thinks her insistence to do good only in the dark is prideful at best, idiotic at worst, but she’ll take it. She likes thinking that Wynonna thought of her enough to clean this time; last time the cop shop sent her out of town she came home to a prideful Wynonna with a newly acquired sixty inch flatscreen that neither of them had the money for.

When she crawls into bed with Wynonna she takes the Earp (warm, soft, rough around the edges—perfect, she thinks) in her arms and makes no plans to let her go.

Come daybreak Nicole wakes up alone. Wynonna’s side of the bed is cold, but they’d slept entangled on Nicole’s, so. There’s music in the air, louder than anything should be at—

8:20am, the clock reads.

Nicole groans, turning her face into her pillow, muttering, “Good  _ God _ .” She drags herself out of bed and pulls on the first sweatshirt she can find.

And then she tears out to the kitchen to find—

Wynonna cooking. 

Trying to (really, it’s not her forte). 

It’s as ridiculous a sight as it is comforting. Somehow. There’s a baking sheet over two stove burners, doused in oil, a gaggle of eggs and bacon frying in the heat. Instant coffee in the French press which, as Nicole sighs, she realizes she cannot even be mad about. Smoke curls out of the toaster but Wynonna likes her toast burnt so she can’t be mad about that one either.

And then there’s Wynonna herself: mumbling along to Hanson, shoeless, pantless, swimming in one of Nicole’s flannels. Hair wild and wavy and dancing with each roll of her shoulders along with the beat.

... _ as you walked into my mind.  _

Nicole smiles, settles against the doorframe.

_ As I walked into this old forgotten hall. _

Wynonna yelps, stung by popping oil as she flips an egg with a fork.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Nicole says, grinning.

_ Just one look and I began to fall. _

Wynonna whirls around, wielding a fork like a weapon. “If you don’t have anything nice to say—”

“I missed you.”

_ Wish I could frame you and this feeling on the wall. _

“Oh. Well that” —Wynonna softens, tsks, dropping her eyes to the stove— “that’s nice.”

Nicole can’t remember the last time she’s seen Wynonna shy. It’s cute. She crosses the room and clicks off the stereo.

“Hey—”

“No, I want to talk,” Nicole says. She pulls a pair of plates down from the cabinet and takes her place at Wynonna’s side. Eggs and bacon and burnt toast pile up until the baking sheet and toaster are empty.

They sit across from each other at the little kitchen table.

Wynonna hugs her knees to her chest and looks at Nicole. “Are we gonna talk about how incredible I am for this breakfast?”

“Who are you and what have you done with Wynonna Earp?”

“I missed you, too.”

“Is this going to be a regular thing?”

“Me playing housewife?” Wynonna chuckles, bites into a strip of bacon.

“I meant you caring.”

“I’ve always cared.”

“You’re showing it in new ways.”

Wynonna hums. “Sure, people change.”

It’s more than that.

Change doesn’t come easy, not to an Earp, and never without cost. Nicole wants to know what the price of Wynonna’s newfound urge to contribute is. Between cooking and cleaning and taking coffee over breakfast instead of whiskey, she’s betting that price is steep.

“I won’t push,” Nicole says, reaching for her, thumbing over Wynonna’s chin. “And I’ll show you where I keep the pots and pans.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Wynonna says, but she’s still smiling. “I tried, okay?”

“I know.” And she didn’t do half bad, Nicole thinks. “You did good.”

“I’m gonna say something,” Wynonna says, serious all of the sudden, “and you’re not going to make a big deal out of it. Yeah? Great. Okay—”

“Wy.”

“Let me finish.”

Nicole nods.

It’s when Wynonna won’t look at her anymore, when she’ll only look at what’s left of her breakfast, brow furrowed, lips pulling back and forth between a worried frown and a nervous little smile, that Nicole realizes something big is about to happen.

She knows Wynonna—too well, some would say— and she knows the signs.

One of two things is about to happen.

“I want to try,” Wynonna says quietly.

Nicole tenses.

“With you,” she finishes.

Nicole won’t make a big deal out of it, just like Wynonna told her not to, but only because one of those two things is indeed happening. Her world is breaking open again and Nicole is going to do everything she can to fit Wynonna into the empty spaces, build it back up around her. With her. Together.

And that’s when she realizes that perhaps, this time, there is no price for change.

It doesn’t always cost something, Nicole thinks, especially if it’s the heart pushing for change.

Either way, she knows, she’ll meet Wynonna halfway. Just to make it that much easier for the woman she loves.

Compromises, you know. Healthy relationships take those.


End file.
